Making it in Unreal: how Fishing: Barents Sea bottled the soul of the ocean

If you know the Barents Sea, situated in the Arctic Ocean just off the northern coast of Norway, you’ll know it’s shallow. Not in the everyday sense you or I might use - you’d struggle to reach the bottom with your tippy-toes at 230 metres - but shallow enough that it’s ideal for fishing. When the ice melts in the spring, the fresh water brings plankton, which in turn feeds small fish that are gobbled up by the cod. It’s a hotbed of life in a part of the world most would consider sparse and inhospitable, and the evocative setting for the simulator Fishing: Barents Sea. Recreating it has meant overlaying a series of complex systems: one for the ocean, another for the weather, and many more to decide on how and where the fish are found. As far as AI is concerned, it puts zombies and gruff men who know how to run and crouch behind a low wall into perspective. Move over Black Ops 4: we’re celebrating a different kind of cod today.

from PCGamesN https://ift.tt/2P54ovc